Stats

September 07, 2018

A Simpleton Accuses

Let me start by saying that Michael Gerson is not a simpleton. He can pinch-hit, though, until a real simpleton comes along. Writing in the Washington Post Gerson takes a wild swing at President Trump and misses. "We are a superpower run by a simpleton!" Calling someone else a simpleton rarely works out well, and it doesn't seem to work well for Gerson either. He writes:

Here is the increasingly evident reality of the Trump era: We are a superpower run by a simpleton. From a foreign policy perspective, this is far worse than being run by a skilled liar. It is an invitation to manipulation and contempt.

Pointing to the polls is the main response of Trump and his supporters. Whatever the president is doing, most Republicans want more of it. As one apologist argues, “His [Trump's] personality is a feature, not a bug. Many Americans are comfortable with that.” Put another way, a motivated group of Americans — which largely controls the GOP nomination process — enjoys Trump’s reality-television version of presidential politics. And you can’t argue with the ratings.

I can and do. What we are finding from books, from insider leaks and from investigative journalism is that the rational actors who are closest to the president are frightened by his chaotic leadership style. They describe a total lack of intellectual curiosity, mental discipline and impulse control. Should the views of these establishment insiders really carry more weight than those of Uncle Clem in Scranton, Pa.? Why yes, in this case, they should. We should listen to the voices of American populism in determining public needs and in setting policy agendas — but not in determining political reality.

We should pay attention to the economic trends that have marginalized whole sections of the country.

We should pay attention to economic trends, says Gerson. What an unfortunate moment to offer that advice — right when the August Jobs Report hits the newsstands.

Long-awaited wage growth posted its biggest increase of the economic recovery in August while payroll gains beat expectations and the unemployment rate held near a generational low of 3.9 percent, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report Friday.

Average hourly earnings rose 2.9 percent for the month on an annualized basis, while nonfarm payrolls grew by 201,000. Economists surveyed by Reuters had been expecting earnings to rise 2.7 percent, payrolls to increase by 191,000 and the jobless level to decline one-tenth of a point to 3.8 percent.

The wage growth was the highest since April 2009.

[...]

[T] he rolls of those at work part time for economic reasons, or the underemployed, fell by 188,000 to 4.4 million. That number has declined by 830,000 over the past year.

Well, what do you know? Underemployed, those who work less than 35 hours per week because they are unable to find full-time work, are now finding full-time jobs. Those are the folks that were left behind during the Obama administration. Is that the trend that Gerson would like us to pay attention to? Probably not. America's economic engine is roaring along at a very inconvenient time for Never Trumpers like Gerson, damn the luck. And that's Gerson's problem. He thinks it's luck.

But you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out why the economy has suddenly taken off. If we cut taxes on the wealthy, investment will grow. Contrary to current liberal doctrine, they will not hide their money in their mattresses, they will invest it so as to make more money. That investment will spur growth in jobs. If we reduce burdensome regulations, smaller business will have an easier time of it. It will be easier to start one, and easier to grow one, and guess what that means — more jobs. If we fight back on unfair trade deals, say we level the playing field by putting tariffs on imported steel, our domestic steel industry will grow. If we remove impediments to oil fracking we will get more domestic energy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and reduce energy costs. And how about immigration enforcement?

A recent analysis by Breitbart News also reviewed the wage and job opportunity benefits of workplace immigration enforcement by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

In the most famous case, 600 jobs were secured for black Americans and wages were increased in February when ICE raided the Cloverhill Bakery in northwest Chicago, Illinois. Black Americans’ wages rose 25 cents thanks to enforcement.

Most recently, the tight labor market helped reintegrate retirees back into the workforce. Breitbart News has also reported extensively on how the tight labor market in Trump’s “hire American” economy has brought new job opportunities for Americans with disabilities and helped lower the demographic group’s unemployment rate.

The tight labor market has also secured higher wages for overtime workers and high-paying, coveted white-collar jobs for American teenagers. Most recently, Breitbart News reported that the construction industry has had to recruit women to take jobs at higher wages rather than hiring illegal aliens. A Chick-Fil-A in California has even raised wages to $18 an hour to retain workers.

But Gerson sees no need to explain all that. Instead he makes blithe reference to "whole sections of the country" that have been "marginalized." Well, what sections and how have they been marginalized? Gerson doesn't say.

We should pay attention to the economic trends that have marginalized whole sections of the country. We should be alert to the failures and indifference of American elites. But we also need to understand that these trends — which might have produced a responsible populism — have, through a cruel trick of history, elevated a dangerous, prejudiced fool. Trump cannot claim the legitimacy of the genuine anxiety that helped produce him. The political and social wave is real, but it is ridden by an unworthy leader. The right reasons have produced the wrong man.

The testimony of the tell-alls is remarkably consistent. Some around Trump are completely corrupted by the access to power. But others — who might have served in any Republican administration — spend much of their time preventing the president from doing stupid and dangerous things.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Gerson will never be mistaken for a rocket scientist. Oh, he's not dumb. A former White House speech writer, he left the George W. Bush administration in 2006, joining the Washington Post in 2007 where he remains as the token establishment conservative who can be depended upon to bash other conservatives who are not moderate enough. He makes a good living, and that's smart. But he has no clue about Trump. Our current accelerating economy is the result of Trump economic policy. Gerson mistakes tweets for policy, writing that "a discussion on 'Fox & Friends' can so often set the agenda of the president." In what dream world does Gerson live?

The testimony of the tell-alls is remarkably consistent. Some around Trump are completely corrupted by the access to power. But others — who might have served in any Republican administration — spend much of their time preventing the president from doing stupid and dangerous things.

The clueless Gerson, all too typical of Trump's enemies, seems utterly incapable of understanding. And that's why we keep winning. Trump's enemies don't get it. They go apeshit over some tweet, hyperventilating for days on end. Meanwhile, ISIS all but disappears from the battlefield, NATO countries begin paying their share of the costs of their own defense, North Korea comes to the bargaining table to talk nuclear disarmament, trade deals move forward, and the American economy shifts into high gear. Gerson & friends never notice. They seem to think, and want us to believe, that it's all because an army of faceless bureaucrats has our back, making it all happen while swiping papers off the Oval Office desk. Sure.

"The testimony of the tell-alls is remarkably consistent," Gerson writes. It is. And the tell-alls, themselves, are remarkably consistent with the rest of the anti-Trump establishment. Like a herd of cows. Cows are remarkably consistent.